James Christensen Revisited
We have been going through our interview archives and we came across an interview we did with the ever talented James Christensen! So, for your reading pleasure we have reposted this rare interview with fantasy artist James Christensen! Enjoy!

James Christensen
Talks Career, Creativity, & More!

Dragons Keep: James, you have painted numerous piece's of art and I am sure have some current projects in the works, however, before we get into that, tell us what inspired you to become an artist?

James Christensen: I have always been a visual person. My earliest memories are in front of the radio in my folk's house. During this time I would be drawing, I liked drawing. I have from when I was a little kid monster sketches. I would also sit in church with a sketchpad and draw. In fact I am better listener when I am drawing. By the time I went to college I knew I wanted to be an artist. Sometime later, I tought at BYU (Brigham Young University). During that time, I was doing what I call my anything for a buck years; commercial art, illustration, 75 pieces or so, for church magazines. But none of it especially looked like me, it was just competent art. I studied the figure hard and learned my craft. I could put on any costume you wanted me too. If you wanted me to look like this artist, I could do it or that artist, I could do it for illustrational purposes. I was doing the fantasy imaginative stuff the whole time.

DK: On the side?

JC: Just my guilty pleasure. It was what I did in my sketchbooks; I drew wacky things, had a chuckle and moved on. Then I would paint a picture of a landscape that somebody had commissioned me to do, a book cover, or an add for a paint company or whatever. It was until the mid seventies, late seventies that friends, guys I had taught with had said, "Do this stuff that you do in your notebooks". I said, "Nobody will want that, there is nothing out there like it". They kind of went, DUH! (laughs). And so, I kind of took a chance and started doing some things out in some shows and got a very positive response. And if there is one thing that I would tell kids as I look back at my own career; people will say, "What would you do differently or whatever?" Some of it is to encourage kids to believe in their vision and to do what feels best. I thought it was so fun and it was what I liked doing that it couldn't be work, so, it couldn't be very important. So, what I did was give in to it and you know I was this new kid on the block at forty, who was able to paint whatever he wanted to.

DK: What was your first professional painting assignment with your own vision?

JC: It was a commission that I had from a guy.

DK: Was it the fantasy fisherman with peanut butter and jelly sandwich?

JC: Yes, that is the one. It was my first commission fantasy painting. He said, just do what you would do if you were doing it for yourself.

DK: I love the story, where he had mentioned, "Everything is in here but lunch".

JC: That's right, so, I put in a sandwich.

DK: Your primary medium seems to be fantasy, what other mediums have you worked in?

JC: I am a figurative painter. I don't consider fantasy a medium, it just tends to be were my brain goes. I think art critics like to put you in a box, because it is easier when you are categorized. So, I end up being the fantasy guy because a lot of my stuff is that way. Quite frankly, I am real happy with that. The truth is, that if you look at a big view of my work I do portrature, I do action painting, I do landscapes, seascapes; almost anything I want to paint can be part of that genre. I am very unlimited, unboxed in and I am satisfied more when the things are more realistic, that's a quote unquote realistic; their believable figurative things. I am not satisfied when I do abstract stuff or splash and dash super loose. I did that in school and I experimented with it and I said, "This doesn't make me feel warm and fuzzy", you know. When I do an angel or a fairy or even a "critter", when I am done I go COOL! So, I accept the fact that, that's what I do; I am a figurative painter and I like to use that to build things.

DK: What role did fantasy story telling or science fiction play in your youth, you mention Disney and Tolkein in the book "A Journey of The Imagination"?

JC: Sure. I love those kinds of stories. When I was little it was fairy tales and that kind of stuff. I didn't actually discover Tolkein until college. But before then, I can remember being in high school with the early Frank Frazetta cover "Conan: The Barbarian", the Robert E. Howard stuff. It was just a treasure when I could find one. I remember seeing number five and going, "Oh, my gosh, there are four to this"!

DK: Going, "Where are they"!

JC: Yeah. Then there was no fantasy book section at the stores. You are too young to remember back then, but there wasn't a category for this stuff. There was mystery, romance, and action.

DK: Horror?

JC: Some. But there was no fantasy stuff. So, as a kid I relied on comic books. I had the box, there was no bagging and boarding, there was dog ears and you know box in your closet that deep that had Superman, Batman, and all the Disney stuff. Also, a big thing, I was just talking with my kids about it was "Classics Illustrated". I don't know if it still around or not, but, I was in a conversation with somebody and they said, "Oh, my gosh, how did you know about such and such, you have read everything". The truth was they had probably two hundred great novels in comic book form and it was called "Classics Illustrated". Everything from "Jason", "The Iliad" you know, "Homer's Iliad and Odyssey" to Dicken's.

DK: They were put into a graphic novel?

JC: They were graphic novels; they were comic books. They weren't nice big bound graphic novels. Even to this day on draw on that to say, "Yes, I know the story line to that"; because I read the comic. Du-mar, The Three Musketeers stuff, all of that.

DK: Those are great classics.

JC: Yeah and I enjoy those. And radio was huge and movies, I mean was so anamored of animated movies and science fiction. I mean, I went to every B science fiction movie, "The Creature from the Black Lagoon", the "Godzilla's", all of those black and white B movies, awful things.

DK: I use to love to watch those Abbot and Costello meet Frankenstien; loved those films.

JC: So, I was a huge fan of all that stuff. We would have to make preparations if T.V. was going to show around Halloween, Dracula. It was like, "Okay, I want all the lights on and I want to watch it", but I was very suseptable you know (We laugh hard). My Dad would say, "You don't want to watch that, its going to mess you up". I would say, "No, I really want to watch it, but I don't mind sleeping with the light on for a few nights" (More laughs). That's the price you pay.

DK: I have great memories of those movies, "The Wolfman" Lon Chaney, "Dracula" Bela Lagosi; cool stuff.

JC: But, all those things fed this card catalog.

DK: Yes, I read of the card catalog in your book.

JC: Well, that's how I filled my card catalog. So, I would use and still to this day do. I mean "Lord of The Rings" was sort of beyond belief representation of what you dreamed about as you read it. I mean for me it hit it spot on, it was well done. Other movies haven't been quite that successful. But, when you get a good movie, the Alien movies and stuff, things that are well done, I am still carried away. I am excited and all of that was important to me. I will also mention that, I think part of listening to the radio stories (dramas) and doing it in your brain visually, carried over. Because starting about fifteen years ago, a little company on the West Coast called "Books on Tape" started up. We had actually at the university, a buddy and I who are painters, hired students at minimum wage to read books out loud into a tape recorder, so, that we could paint and listen to a story. Then we found out that this "Books on Tape" was doing that. Well, it has become a huge industry and thank you for Southern California traffic, because it was the commuters that demanded the books. Now they (Books on Tape) have five thousand titles. They come up with forty books a month; it is a huge industry. I listen to books on tape while I paint. So, it continues to feed me. If I am designing a painting I have to turn off the book, because I am going, "OK should the guy be up here or down here, oh wait, I forgot what they (tape) were saying". That is a part of your brain that is language. But once I start painting the checkerboards and noodling the leaves on the trees and just the hours it takes me to do it, it is a whole different part of my brain. If I can get lost in a book I can paint another five or six hours. So, I use that still and make up the pictures in my head.